Just look at the storm he initiated when he urged the four first-term Congresswomen to ‘go back to where you came from’: The Democrats, all of them, fell over themselves condemning Trump for his outlandish statements, then groveled to get glorious TV airtime, bashing the President 24 hours a day. Their ‘crocodile tears’ of outrage were, of course, echoed by their enablers on television– Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski immediately come to mind. Haven’t we been to this rodeo a thousand times before?
[One digression before I go on: the Democrats may have expressed disgust at the President’s exhortations, but they secretly, I think, loved the hullabaloo: it’s sure to give a huge boost to fund-raising for the 2020 campaign, which is what all these politicians salivate over in reality.]
But, Mr. Trump accomplished exactly what he hoped for: the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. Mr. Trump gleefully will label the four women as anti-American, as Socialists and Communists [of course, just like Mr. Trump, 80% of Americans don’t know the difference] even going as far as calling them Al Queda backers and, hey, why not, Hezbollah zealots. He’ll throw the kitchen sink at them. And, predictably, the entire Democratic Party will be labeled as fierce enemies of America. Like lemmings going over the cliff, they could all go down with the ship, come next November.
Red-baiting is as old as Senator Joe McCarthy holding up fake lists of Communists in the State Department during the early 1950’s, but it remains a very powerful stain and formidable force in American politics. The tactic is the entirety of the Donald Trump play book: throw everything at his opponents, create chaos, dissension and confusion, flummox everybody, and walk away with the prize.
I told you so…. In the previous ‘Mr. Gripes’, I offered the opinion that the minute Attorney General William Barr announced that the Mueller investigation did not warrant bringing any collusion charges up against President Trump, Mueller as news was over. The country had had enough, and was suffering from Mueller-fatigue. Turn the page, Americans said in unison, let’s move on. And that is exactly what happened. For two years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all of us were caught up in the investigation. Cable news loved it – ratings were way up, profits were way up, so there was no motivation to move off Mueller and give us some respite. And, in those two years, television news lost its ‘impartial’ standard, a terrible precedent for a free press. Ratings since Mueller ended the probe have plummeted, i.e., Rachel Maddow on MSNBC lost 500,000 viewers within a week of Barr’s action! Let’s face it, Democrats: Mueller is now a corpse. Mouth to mouth resuscitation won’t work. Move on, for God’s sake.
The Farmers – Trump lies. He says his tariffs on American agricultural product are bringing ‘billons’ of dollars into that sector, and he’s saving the farmers from foreign predations. ‘We’re making billions of dollars.’ Then why has he spent $30 billion out of the national budget on essentially bribes to wheat farmers to shield them from the huge damage tariffs are doing to these same farmers? Cotton farmers, because of lost business with China, have not planted 30% of their fields for next year – they’re losing billions. I can go on and on about many other industries. You can’t say money’s pouring in the front door, and the same money’s pouring out the back window, and then brag we’re ‘making billions.’ It makes no sense.
Mr. Gripes takes a look each morning at the proposed daily Presidential schedule. And, every day, the President has nothing planned until 11:30; and then it’s usually an insignificant meeting with a business or lobbying group. After that, nothing is on his schedule until late afternoon; again it’s some insignificant photo opt or meeting, if there’s anything at all. And that’s the end of another day. Let’s assume he’s not exactly perusing some position paper on New Zealand 2020 sheep-wool earnings projections during his ‘free’ hours, right? This President’s rapt attention is probably focused on watching FOX News most of the day. And what about the country’s business, you ask? Not his job, Jose.
America’s Women World Cup: Juxtapose the jingoistic, nationalistic, vacuous, and hyperbolic coverage by American media of the country’s women’s World Cup team with the real story: an embarrassing display of American bad sportsmanship, insufferable manners, and the bullying of vastly inferior opponents. In the world’s eyes, we showed once again we’re nothing but self-centered, spoiled, entitled brats.
In the first game against an overmatched Thailand opponent, the Americans won 13-1! In the press here, the slaughter was seen as simply a dominant and impressive victory. I saw it differently: it was ‘Ugly American’ all over again. Why, in the last minute of play, did the Americans have to score that thirteenth goal? And then celebrate as if they won the World Series? The dignified course of action would have been to simply pass the ball back and forth to each other for a few minutes, without any attempt to score again, until game’s end. The players would have been lauded for their sportsmanship. But, no way was that going to happen: Their motivation was to humiliate the Thai team.
Besides the bad conduct on the field, for the full two weeks of competition, we had to listen to nothing but complaints from the American women. It never ceased. Mostly it was about money they thought they were owed since the men’s team was paid more. Did they have a point? It may be an apples versus oranges comparison, but I do know this: there’s no way a women’s World Cup makes as much or more money than the men’s tournament: the men’s games, which traditionally are an enormous sporting extravaganza all over the globe for a month, bring in billions in revenues and TV rights, far outstripping the women’s games. [Besides, the American women didn’t do so badly anyway: each team member on the women’s team in the end will receive about $350,000, certainly a handsome sum, whatever their grievance is.]
Then, on the last day, American team members actually had the temerity to protest what time the final was going to be televised in the United States; they assumed there’d be lower viewership with a late-morning showing. And, predictably, they shouted ‘conspiracy.’ Ridiculous. The women’s final started Sunday morning at 11 am on television. Is that such a crime? A point of comparison: two weeks later, the telecast of each of the first two days of golf’s British Open began at 1:30 am [!] on the East Coast. I didn’t hear or read one complaint about that.
One last point: As certain as the sun rises in the East, dreary politicians had to jump in to piggyback on the team’s success. Mayor De Blasio in New York City – who apparently doesn’t have the money to fix the dreadful subways or get the homeless off the streets -- hosts a victory parade down in the financial district, replete with the obligatory ticker tape, at a considerable cost. How craven this mayor is: the team’s success, he figures, will polish his me-too credentials with women across the country, as he pursues his absolutely moronic and arrogant Presidential run. New York didn’t need the parade. Let Minneapolis or Wichita hold the event. It cost $1.5 million to host. Bill De Blasio might as well have tossed that $1.5 million into the East River.
Mr. Gripes
August 8, 2019
Jim Israel
